Ritam Chaurey on Placing the Firm at the Center of India's Structural Transformation

Today my guest is Ritam Chaurey, who is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. We talked about structural transformation in India over the last three decades, how firm level behavior responds to regulatory and fiscal changes, how firms choose between capital and labor, or permanent versus contractual labor, land use and factory location, and much more. Recorded April 29th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Ritam on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:07) - The Industrial Disputes Act, Permanent Workers, and Contractors (00:10:14) - Impacts of Reliance on Contract Labor (00:16:02) - Labor Protections and Their Impact on Firm Behavior (00:22:35) - Binding Constraints and the Rise of 'Invisible Workers' (00:27:46) - Labor Supply Preferences in Structural Transformation (00:34:07) - A 'Bad Law,' Musclemen, and the Evolution of Debt Law in India (00:40:21) - SARFAESI's Unintended Consequences (00:46:28) - The Drop in Fixed-Capital Assets (00:48:57) - The Impact of Judicial Delays on Labor-Capital Substitution (00:52:41) - The Bankruptcy Code and Marginal Improvements (00:55:54) - Spillover Benefits of Relaxing Land Use Regulation (01:04:18) - Location-Specific Subsidies and Barrier Relaxation (01:06:36) - A Case Study: Uttarakhand and Himachal (01:13:32) - The Impact of New Bank Branches in Underbanked Communities (01:23:24) - The Demonetization Shock (01:29:48) - Outro